Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ as a better C (fact or fiction)?
Message-ID: <4153@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 24 May 88 00:05:06 GMT
References: <6590041@hplsla.HP.COM> <706@vlot.cs.vu.nl> <456@polari.UUCP> <735@vlot.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 17

In article <735@vlot.cs.vu.nl> jos@cs.vu.nl (Jos Warmer) writes:
>In this example [empty function] the message from lint is useless, and the
>error that C++ found, was not detected by lint.
>  lint: hello defined( x.c(2) ), but never used
>  C++ : line 3: warning: no value returned from hello()

I could just as easily say that the message from C++ is useless, and the error
that lint found was not detected by C++.

I'll grant that the C++ error messages may be more informative (though I don't
think "illegal combination of pointer and integer, op =" is so bad once you
get used to it; the only two things it could mean are "int = pointer" or
"pointer = int").  But lint is, by design, stricter than C -- it will flag
"questionable" constructs that are quite legal; it's not necessarily a Good
Thing to include all of lint's warnings in C++.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint